ECONOMIC REALITIES BURDEN SOVIET UNION'S POLITICAL ELITE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100030004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 12, 1999
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 12, 1965
• Content Type: NSPR

l,iluArt ~_r l, ', }~liY?
I J4Jl~,r'ngan1tized - Approved For Release : Cl
DEC 121965
COTLOYYI
soviet.
CPYRGHT
FOIAb5
ealities Burden
nion's Political Elite i
C01 YRGHT By MARK W. HOPKINS, of The Journal Staff
{ overs a owe economics last wee in the ovie union wi t i a
P shuffling of titles in. the government hierarchy. But it was the 1966 eco-
t nomic plan that revealed. the pressures on Soviet politicians. Significantly,
the plan envisions the lowest growth of Soviet industry since at least World
~`. War II-a modest 6.7,o%o. In this grain of sand is a world of knowledge about the
(.Soviet economic crisis of the mid-1960's
Last week's political changes were more Aganbegyan `reportedly delivered a
~., _.. critique of the S -t. eronnniv Nn-
i,Bolshevik Anastas Mikoyan, 70, retireda'' central ' `"a l V1l1Afl UlllJb ya) Ly
n central committee, and then again at a
associate of ? Communist party first see-!:., out by an American visitor who re-
that honorary position. And ambitious i cording to these notes, Aganbegyan
b
th
y -all Soviet economic gal w
taw
(( c
Brezhne'v seemed to`L'consolidate his declined "bv three times." This would
4-up and 'coming political' executive, like- 1 ricultural production taken separately
Slowdown Since '59 1 g an""" g cording to 't6-notes
,I
d
the enormous strains on the host-Khru
tional policies.
TheJ'cajor divisive issue-at home i
by. all odds a lagging economy. Sind
been sliding every year; agricultur,
,production has fluctuated, reverbera x
ing through the whole economy everi
i
h
h
t
me t
e w
eat crop fails.
Next year's relatively ;low growt
_~
rate target for industry and 8% to 10a-'
11ncrease in farm output are the result.
of two things: `A candid appraisal with
Jn the Soviet Union of the real state of
the economy. And new policies to at
ter the pattern of investment,/favbrin
agriculture and consumer goods Indus}
tries more than they have been.
What sort of appraisal has occurred
is suggested in reports. of Prof. Abel G.
Aganbegyan, a 33 year old Soviet econ-
omist attached to the Novosibirsk instis.~
ute, pf economics. 1
sai
tat in. 1964 the American central
intelligence agency "gave a completely
economists for misjudging American
economic growth. While in 1958 they
predicted an annual rate of 2.5% for
that unemployment in in e d i u m. and
in large cities, 8%. These figures are
lation capable of work did "not part:ici-
Aganbegyan further 'said that it Was
difficult for the Soviet Union lto match
western-de ense expenditures. While the
Soviet economy was about half as pro.
ductive as the American, "we have
about the same absolute expenditures
as the United States" for defense.
If this is true, it means that the So-i
.viet Union spends about 50 billion dol- I
lars a year for defense, although the a
officially reported budget this year is ?
equivalent of 14 billion, and for next,
14.7 billion.
According to notes of his presentation
in Moscow, Abanbegyan said that of
100 million workers in the Soviet Union,
30 to 40 million were employed in de-
fense industries, and the rest in agri-
substantiated, by other available' data.
on the Soviet labor force.
`Senseless 'Course'
He charged that the Soviet Union has
"senselessly followed a course of over- t
industrialization" and that agriculture
has been 'exploit'ed to develop heavy
industry.
"The average kolkhoz ' worker .(col-
lective farmer) can earn one and a
half rubles ($1.65) a day doing?kolkhoz
work," the notes say. "Working on .his
own private plot he can earn' three and
a half rubles ($3.85). Is it worth while
working on, the kolkhoz? No."
Aganbegyan is reported to have said
that if p,,eople were allowed to leave the
countryside,- "there would soon be no-
body left there at all."
Unquestionably Aganbegyan was not
alone in his assessment of the Soviet
economy. Most of the ills he enumer-
ates have been reported or implied In
other Soviet statements, though not
always with statistical evidence and so
candidly.
The question is. whether the Soviet j
economy can be reorganized now, with-
out slowing down even more. If that happens, the pressures to find ex-
pedients, as Khrushchev several times
tried unsuccessfully, will mount and re
shufflings in the political hierarchy will
- 149R000100030004-7